


Protego et Vindica

by arielgryffinpuff



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Dubious Consensual Touching, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, OMC is a young adult/teenager, Post-Season/Series 02, Protective Parent Jim "Chief" Hopper, Sexual Assault, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-02-07 18:27:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12846969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arielgryffinpuff/pseuds/arielgryffinpuff
Summary: El knows she's not meant to go out much. But she's so curious.Curious as to why someone would want to make her feel good but they have to hide it. Why?I.e. Hopper is a protective, angry, guilty, worried parent, and El is confused.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not entirely sure how long this story will be or where exactly i'm going with it, but this idea nagged at me and I want to write it.  
> Also, tell me if you think the tags should be altered. Feedback is love. It really makes my day.  
> Heed the warnings!

She turns a corner onto a street with a few large houses as she sees the sun start to go down in the dark pink and grey sky. She keeps on running until she’s outside the petrol station again. She stops to catch her breath, and then looks back and sees someone that looks like _him_ , a darkened figure looking for her, so she has to keep running, even though she’s hurt, her ankle aches, her stomach hurts, but she knows endurance. If anything, she knows how to run away and hide.

She’s heading along the road, as the woods beginning to thicken on either side. She finally stops, when she thinks she’s safe enough away, and she needs a break, so she goes into the forest and hides behind a big tree, sitting down to catch her breath. It’s now still getting dark and it’s cold; light traces of snow on the ground, and she shivers around herself with her bare arms growing goose bumps; her jacket having been forcibly taken off by the bad man who she thought was nice.  

She doesn’t know what time it is, since she lost her watch, but she thinks Hopper might be going home about now, and he’ll know she’s been out, she’s been bad.

She was _stupid_.

She sits still and concentrates, ignoring the fear rising in her chest, and she closes her eyes. She attempts to go to the void in her mind by touching her bracelet on her wrist that Hopper gave her to wear, and she concentrates on it, on clearing her mind and seeing him. Finally, she can hear his voice calling out to her through the radio back at home. She delves deeper into the blackness, until she feels like she’s there with him, and she speaks to him.

“Hopp?” She whispers hopefully.

“El? Are you ok?” Hopper says, and El can see the worry on his face, but the connection won’t last long, as she’s so tired already.

“Yes,” she replies quietly.   
“Geez kid, don’t do that to me. Where are you? Why aren’t you at home, El?”

“I-I was just in the forest and I got lost – I’m sorry,” she says remorsefully, her eyes stinging.

“Gah, kid. Alright. Let’s just get you home. Where are you, do you know?”

“I-I’m on a road.”

In the blackness, she sees Hopper grabbing his keys and moving determinedly.

“Ok, I’m coming to get you right now, ok? Hold tight. What road, do you see any markings, buildings?”

“I don’t know,” she says pitifully.

“Kid, you’re gonna have to do better than that.”

El took a couple of deep breaths, as she saw Hopper get into his car. Then, in the blackness, his image started to blur into wisps, “I-I’m by a gas station, I think, in the woods.”

“Ok, El, stay th-”

El is shocked out of the void when the image and voice disappear, and she snaps back to reality, eyes wide looking around, as she hears rustling in the forest. She whips her head around and sees a rabbit twitching. She breathes deeply, looking around for anyone else. She can’t see anyone, so she relaxes against the tree and closes her eyes, huddling her arms around her for warmth, as her tired muscles go numb and she succumbs to the peaceful lull of darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will check it later. Thanks for feedback, it encourages me. Sorry if this chapter seems a bit vague or confusing, I didn't want to get too explicit, more about what El's feeling, but it's there. The prologue takes place directly after this.

El was using her powers to make the waters of the lake rise.

She knew technically she wasn’t meant to, but Hopper said while he was at work and her friends were at school, he supposed she could go short distances, or go out with someone else, like Joyce, to the shop perhaps. Sometimes she would get to see her friends on the weekend.  

She needed this today. And she was careful. But she wasn’t expecting to see anyone in the woods by the lake, less someone sneaking up on her.

El’s heart started beating faster as she saw the person creeping into view, crackling through the sticks. She hoped they hadn’t seen her, but it was too much risk, and she suddenly realised why Hopper put in place the rules he did. She’d made a terrible mistake.

“And who are you, pretty?”

She stared back at the man, who now stood still and cocked his head at her.

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t think he was one of the Bad Men, since he was a lot younger, and surprisingly it didn’t seem like he was ‘out to get her’.

“Well, my name’s Matty,” he said, coming closer to her, “What are you doing all out here by yourself?”

“N-nothing, just walking,” she replied.

He smiled at her. “You’re a real pretty one, you know that? And shy too, that’s kinda cute.”

She frowned at him.

“You can do some pretty special things,” he said, and she looked scared, “Unless I’m high again…”

She didn’t know what that meant. But now he was a liability. A threat.

“But don’t worry, hey, don’t be scared,” the man reassured her, putting his hands on her shoulders as she stepped back into a tree, “I can make you feel things I bet you’ve never felt before.”

She was confused at that, suspiciously looking into his blue eyes at close proximity, as he looked down at her.

“What…things?” She asked timidly.

“Good things. Pleasure.” His lips curled into a smile, his grin spreading wide on his pale cheeks, “We can be like…special friends, if you want.”

She swallowed. “Special friends?”

His face relaxed at her, wondering if she was simple or somethin’.

“Yeah…” he drawled out, covering her body with his own, “Special friends.”

She could smell some weird, strong perfume on him.

He traced her face and she thought he was going to kiss her, but she didn’t want that, cause only Mike had kissed her on the lips. But the strange man traced his fingers down to her chest and felt around her nipples through her shirt. She tensed, wondering whether she should stay or make a run for it. But he _knew_. Hopper wasn’t going to be happy. The bad men could come if he told someone.

“Feels good, does it?” he said, “It’ll feel better when they come through properly.” She frowned at him in question, again. He fought the urge to roll his eyes.

“Your boobs?”

“Oh,” she said. She only knew little of that, “Boys don’t have boobs.”

“No, but older girls and women do. It’s ok though, yours’ will grow.”

He started to lean in and kiss and suck on her neck, and it felt weird, and too personal.

She started pushing at him, but he was too big and strong, and wouldn’t budge.

She pushed him harder, more aggressively.

“Hey, hey,” he put his hands up, “What’s up?”

“I – I only kiss…Mike,” she said. She tried to work it out in her head, but she just didn’t want to kiss anyone else like she kissed Mike. He was different kind of special, though she didn’t know what yet.

“Ok, ok. No kissing, that’s fine,” he says back easily.

El was still backed up against the tree, shifting her feet. She looked around her surroundings, but all she could see was woods and the small lake, and in no time at all, she felt the strange man’s hands unbuckling her trousers. That was weird.

“Y-you can’t tell anyone.” The man looked at her with her big brown eyes.

“Of course I won’t, darlin’, you don’t have to worry about that.” He reached his fingers into her pants.

“A-about what you saw,” she clarified.

Ohh. What she was doing with the water. He could have sworn that was a trick of the eye, water floating upwards magically. Was it her? Or did she just think she was doing that, cause she was simple?

Yea, probably that.

“Oh, I won’t tell a soul,” he promised, “That’s just between you and me, cause we’re special friends.” He smiled at her and started probing her.

What happened next felt very strange to El. The man’s large hands were cold, and it sometimes stung a bit, making her wince. She was also curious, she needed to know what this was, what it felt like. She liked the secrecy of it, the intimacy, and it actually felt…weird, but not too bad.

She gasped as he touched her where it sent shocks through her body, a strange, alien feeling inside of her. Yes, she had touched there before. Yes, a doctor once had come to the lab to check her out regularly for her health. But this was different, this was…Was it pleasure, as the man said?

What was she doing? Was this wrong?

“Wait,” she says, “Stop.”

“What?” He sighs with a slightly impatient tone.

“Are we…supposed to be doing this?”

“Just enjoy it,” he advises. That wasn’t really an encouraging answer.

He stood up properly, and pushed his body right up against hers, and she was really starting to get doubts.

“Hey, look, I just wanna make you feel good. And I wanna make me feel good as well. And we keep it all secret. Neither of us tells anyone. Sounds fair, right?”

She nodded, as the wind blew into her face, making her face cool and her eyes sting.

“Do other – people – do this?” she questioned, curious for answers.

“Ha,” he said, reaching down his own trousers this time as her eyes widened at was he was doing to himself, “People do it all the time. They just don’t talk about it all that much. Especially to kids. Kids aren’t really _supposed_ to,” he says conspiringly.

“What is that?” She whispered, pointing her head towards his crotch.

He laughed and looked at her weirdly.

“You really don’t know much, do you?” he said pointedly, watching her confused face, “How old are you?”

“Th-thirteen.”

His eyes widened, “Huh. I thought you’d be older than that.”

“That’s what men have,” she stated, “I know that, I’m not stupid.”

“No, of course you’re not,” he says reassuringly, leaning against her.

She was considering the length of his ‘man’s thing’ worriedly, as he gripped her arms.

“S-stop,” she says, unsure.

“What, you wanna go somewhere else? You seem cold, we probably should go inside somewhere.”

She looked at him, swallowing. He did his trousers back up. “Come with me,” he held out his hand, and while she was deciding what to do, he grabbed it and pulled her along the stumbling path of the woods.

She was intrigued by how she’d never done this before. She guessed it was things that only adults do, like how only adults have children, and she knew it was linked. And though she wasn’t sure about Matty, he was right, the touching kind of felt good and bad at the same time. But she didn’t like that she didn’t know him. Nobody else she knew did this, at least, they don’t talk about it, because it’s private. She saw some older teenagers or adults doing these sorts of things; she’d even seen some things on the romance movies on TV. But she didn’t know Matty, and she didn’t feel like that towards him. He seemed neither a good nor bad man, just a weird one. Not like Mike, who she really liked. Or her other friends, who were always nice. Why was Matty interested in her? Maybe he was a bad man in disguise.

She looked around and started getting second, or third thoughts, thinking about her chances of running away. Hopper would be so mad. She said she wouldn’t go too far and not use her powers, and what had she done? Exactly that. She couldn’t be relied upon. She’d probably be locked up and at least then she’d be safe. She realised that that is only what Hopper and her other friends cared about anyway. Just like she wanted them to be safe.

She suddenly yanked her hands out of the man’s and stood defiantly behind him. He turned around.

“What now?”

She backs away from him.

“I don’t want to go with you,” she says in a small voice.

“Yes, you do.” They stare at each other, the air tense and cold. He walks up to her and grabs her arms.

“No! You’re a – a bad man!” She says, pushing him off of her, and in the struggle, he elbows El in the stomach and she falls to the ground, covered by the man’s body as he pins her down. “Well, guess what, _kid_ ,” he hisses, “Men aren’t very nice. They all want this-” he puts a hand down on her chest, “or this,” he gropes her between her legs again and pushes hard, “Considering I wanted to be your friend, I’m not actually that bad. You’re a simple little kid, and I took pity on you.” El was shaking her head, blinking through tears in her eyes. It hurt.

“No, no,” she shouted, hitting at him, but it wouldn’t work, he wouldn’t budge, and she felt constricted, confined, unable to move, her panicking threatening to swallow her up. But she had only been able to save herself. That’s what she could do. She couldn’t save herself from her own stupidity, _stupid_ , _brat_ , and she was crying, and wishing she was anywhere else but here, wondering why no one ever came to save her.

The man started holding her down by putting his hands around her neck and squeezing, until she had trouble breathing. She held up a hand shakily and screamed, and the man’s eyes blew wide as he flew off of her and landed across from her on the forest floor.

El panted, looking around wildly. She stumbled to her feet, and started running through the woods, tripping now and then, and she looked around and saw he had started to get up.

“Hey! Come back here, where do you think you’re going?” He shouts.

She runs, but soon the injured man comes after her and manages to grab her ankle, catapulting them both to the floor.

El is winded by the impact to her stomach, as the man starts taking off her – jacket? And pulling at her trousers-

“You little-”

“Wrah, AH, AH!” She closes her eyes and lets out screams of fear and helplessness, her control wavering, the leaves of the forest floor blowing everywhere, trees creaking, breaking like her resolve as tears roam freely down her face.

“What the hell-”

El hiccups through her breaths, and pushes her hair out of her eyes as she shakily stands up, seeing the man in shock and inspecting the bloody wound on the back of his head. She stumbles backwards, and starts to run, gasping at the initial shock of her ankle pains shooting through her leg, hearing shouts but not really hearing them at all, just feeling the threat, the fear, and she wants to know why, why, does this _happen_ to her, why couldn’t she could do as she was told. Why was the world like this?

But she always looked after herself. She saved herself. She wouldn’t stop.

So she runs, until she can’t run anymore.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yea, I'm bad at updating. I'm working on it though. I lack motivation, unfortunately. I'm an unproductive person.   
> I like to hear what people think, though! (sorry for rant)

“El! El..!” Hopper was shouting, shining his torch around the forest, looking closely. Dammit.

\--

El slowly wakes up. She remembers everything in too much detail.

But she saved herself. Like she always does.

Because no one else can control her.

Papa did, for a time. Mike made a sore attempt. Hopper tried. Matty learnt from his mistake, she hoped.

She could never be controlled by anyone. It was both a blessing and a curse. Did this mean she was alone, now? Whatever she did, it never ended the way she wanted. But there was definitely good types of control and bad ones. Ones meant to keep her safe, to set her boundaries. One meant to hurt her, to use her.

Her mind kept going around in endless circles-

El jumps when she hears something. Rustling around the forest. She looks around cautiously, her body protesting at the movement, as she spots the headlights of the jeep down the road, the sun setting as the sky darkens.

“Hopper?” She says timidly. She looks behind, worrying that it might not be him, that he hasn’t come, and she’s scared that that man will come back, scared…

—

Walking down the road, shining his light in the direction of the trees and listening out, he looks behind him to see if anyone’s following. Luckily apart from the gas station, and the little street down the way, there’s hardly anyone out here at this time, but it’s still possible that El got seen by someone, and that’s why she sounded scared on the radio. He was worrying about how far she’d gone out.

“El?” He called out, intensely searching the forests, crossing the road every now and then to the other side to look for her, “El! Jesus Christ, it sounds like I’m looking for a dog,” he mutters, and closes his eyes in frustration. That is _not_ a great analogy of his daughter.

Daughter. It felt weird rolling off his tongue again, after so long. She wasn’t exactly like a normal child a parent would have to look after. She was special, she was traumatized, and she was stubborn, but not unwilling to compromise, which was good, most of the time. He had set parameters of where she was allowed to go, but no, because it’s El, she doesn’t apply to those ‘rules’. Of course she got lost where anyone could find her. He knew this irritation was just because it was late at night, and he was worried about her, and didn’t know how to teach her to be more…normal. Or, at least, comfortable, happy as a kid could be, considering everything they’ve been through. Though, if this time he had to call it in at the station, he didn’t exactly have to lie to his colleagues necessarily. He had documentation now. But telling them would be…complicated.

Walking slowly down the road, he then heard a small voice.

He whips back around, and balances himself on a tree trunk, as he starts walking back in that direction, towards the sound of El’s questioning voice.

\--

She jumped at the sound of a branch breaking, standing up and putting her hand up shakily as she looked through the dark trees, though she didn’t think she could use her powers if she wanted to; she was so weak.

“El, it’s me.”  
She turned around quickly and saw it was Hopper, shining his torch at her, as he lowered it a bit.

“Jeez, what happened, El?” He said, striding over to her as she looked around anxiously, “Are you ok?”  
El didn’t say anything. What to say? What…should she say?

“Bad…b,” she managed to mumble, sniffing. Hopper took his coat off and wrapped it around her.  
“God, you’re freezing, El, what’ve you been doing out here?”

“B-bad things,” she said quietly, lowering her head, “I’m sorry.”

“What – what are you talking about?”  
She shook her head. Hopper put a hand on her back to lead her back to the car, when she tripped over a tree root, and she didn’t make any effort to move, but fell instead to the forest floor, and started to…Cry?

“Hey, El,” he bent down to her, not sure what was wrong, “El, was it – bad men?”  
El just cried more.

“Ok, ok, it’s alright, hey, El, it’s ok,” he reassured her, really not reassuring himself though, “Let’s just get you back home, yea?”

El held onto her ankle and caved further inwards.

“Woah, kid, are you hurt?” He said worriedly, putting a hand on her shoulder, but she flinched away, and he took his hand away, looking wide-eyed at her. “El, _tell me_.”

“It-it was a bad – man – but not the bad _men_?” she tried to explain, her shoulders heaving and breathing laboured as she continued to cry, thinking how little she knew. She couldn’t seem to stop the crying, though. _Annoying_. “I’m sorry,” she blubbered. She could hear Hopper’s reassurances to her, but she couldn’t move, her body seemingly endlessly wracked with sobs, and the anxiety on top of that of what would happen, and the _shame_. If she had a dad now, she didn’t anymore. She was too _bad_ , she couldn’t be a good daughter, and she never _listened_.

“No, no, no, hey kid,” Hopper broke out of her thoughts, looking at her, as she realised she had been muttering.

“You’re not a _bad kid_ , ok? You’re _not_ _bad_ ,” he accentuated, “And I’m gonna take you home.”

El looked up and blinked at him emotionally. She shuffled her leg, and winced, and before she knew it, she was scooped up from underneath and lifted into the air, in Hopper’s embrace, sighing only slightly at the effort, as he started walking towards the car. She leant her weary and heavy head on his shoulder, and wrapped her hands around his neck. _Safe_.

"Yea, kid," Hopper replied, lightly pressing his mouth to her head of curls, "You're safe with me."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the comments, they really make my day, and they make me feel more confident in my writing (which is one of the reasons why it takes so long to get something right.)

El drifted dozily in and out of an on-edge consciousness, vaguely aware of being in the jeep as the sky got darker and she nestled into her jacket which smelled like…home. Though she felt tired, both physically and mentally, especially from all the crying, she couldn’t seem to relax or sleep comfortably because it _hurt._

She was aware that Hopper was carrying her again and he gently laid her down on the sofa in their cabin, _home_ , where she was safe and no one could find her. Hopper draped a blanket over her and got her a drink of water. He turned the lights on, and took his coat off, moving around hurriedly and grumbling while El just sort of sat there, leaning into the cosy cushions.

Hopper put the kettle on and rumbled through some of the cupboards to find a first aid pack. He got an ice pack, and came back to El, sitting on the edge of the sofa next to where she was bundled up.

“What happened, El?” Hopper asked. His tone didn’t leave room to compromise. But she didn’t want to compromise. She didn’t want to talk.

“Ok. How about this. You tell me where you’re hurt, and let me take care of you, OK?” he said firmly, “And then you tell me what happened. Yea?”

She slowly nodded.

“Ok,” he breathed a sigh of relief, “Now, tell me if this hurts.”  
He carefully lifted her bad leg up, placed it on the blanket and pressed around her ankle.

“Mm, hurts a bit,” she said softly, sniffing, “Not bad.”

“Ok.” He shuffled forward, holding her leg to put the ice pack around her ankle. She sat up a bit to get in a more comfortable position, holding onto her blanket and her rabbit teddy bear, and in the light from this position he could now see her much better, looking pensive, and it made him wish he had reconsidered questioning her more earlier, perhaps even stopping by the hospital on the way back.

He grit his teeth and put the blanket back around her socked feet so she wouldn’t get cold. Then, he gingerly put his hand up to her neck where there were angry red marks around her skin.

“Are those _finger marks_ –?” He asked incredulously, as El caved her neck inwards. “El, what happened?”

Eleven was frightened, and she couldn’t help thinking back to the days of Papa interrogating her. She really didn’t wanna get in trouble.

“Please. H-he could tell someone, about me,” El said fearfully, her tear ducts rising up again, a lump forming in her throat, “We could all be in danger. Bad danger.”

He sighed. “We’ll worry about that later; in fact I will _personally_ deal with this crap-head when I find him,” he said determinedly, “El, I – if you’re badly hurt, we might have to go to a doctor.”

“No!” She squeaked out immediately, reaching her hand out, and Jim’s face softened, “p-please.” She was getting teary-eyed again.

“Ok, ok. Ok,” he compromised, nodding, “But, El, come on, you have to be honest with me here, ok?”

She nodded fast, not wanting him to call anyone else or go anywhere where someone else could prod her and test her.

“It’s not bad, I don’t need a doctor!” She explained, and twiddled her fingers with her blanket. Hopper nodded glumly again and saw that the kettle was gone. He went up to get a cup of hot cocoa for El and some coffee for himself.

El couldn’t tell Hopper about Matty. Could she? He had told her not to tell anyone. Or he would tell people, the bad men, about her powers, and then they’d all get in trouble, maybe even dead. Did she even deserve to be kept safe at this point? When she endangered the others? But then, it was Matty’s fault as well. She was angry.

Hopper came back, giving the hot drink to her, and she puts her hand out timidly, taking a sip and then putting it down next to her. Hopper sat down, feeling the cushions dent further, as he faced her on the settee and held onto her hand. He rubbed it.

“El,” he prompted.

“Don’t want you to get mad,” she said fearfully, averting her eyes.

He sighs softly, “I’m not gonna get mad, kid. Whatever it was. I promise.”

She nodded tearfully, and held her stomach, looking down. “Y-you were right,” she said quietly, “I shouldn’t have g-gone out too far, b-but I wanted to see the lake and – the park, b- but, this man saw me – use my powers. I thought he was a nice man, but I don’t think he was. I’m sorry. I was _stupid_.”

Hopper was shaking his head frustratedly, growing more worried, “What _man_?” he asked.

She couldn’t help but be frightened, and thinking back to the days of Papa interrogating her. She really didn’t wanna get in trouble.

“He said his name was Matty,” she revealed, wiping away at the tears in her eyes and swallowing, “But I don’t think he was one of the bad men. He was younger than the bad men…but older than me,” she tried to figure out. She wasn’t great at ages or reading people yet; that was still quite hard, “He was just walking through the park when he saw me.”

“And then what happened?”

She shook her head.

Hopper stares at her crying face and flares his nostrils and looks away, “Ok, ok, kid. In your own time.”

El sniffled, grateful. She stood up, blanket still around her and Hopper watched her slowly make her way to the bathroom. He ran a hand over his face like he did when he was stressed. Taking a hold of his coffee, he gulped some needingly. Coffee usually calmed him down.

El didn’t want to cry. But the tears just kept silently falling down her face. And her body was sore, it hurt, and she felt tired. She wanted to sleep, but she knew that Hopper had to make sure she was okay first, since he cared about those type of things.

When she went to the toilet, she realised it was sore down there, as she feared, and she was still confused about the whole thing, and worried by the blood in her pants.

She had heard somewhere that that sometimes happened to girls. But she just got even more confused at that thought, because this just seemed like it hurt, and was probably because of Matty. But she knew she hurt him a lot more.

She slowly came out of the bathroom when finished, her blanket wrapped around her as she shivered, but it was getting warmer within the cosy cabin.

El bit her lip. She didn’t exactly feel thrilled at the idea of ‘Doctors’ or anyone really ‘checking her out’ but now that there was blood, she might actually need a doctor, she didn’t want to die. But she didn’t know how bad it was. Right now, her ankle was hurting, and she was just so tired and achy.

She hobbled to the sofa, wiping at her eyes. Hopper stood, sipping his coffee, and pacing. She looked up at him, the golden light illuminating the room and his ‘figuring-out’ expression, as if he was assessing her.   

“There’s… blood.” She bit her lip.  
Hopper looked at her suddenly.

“Blood? Blood where?”

“Pants.”

“Pants?” Hopper said, “What do you mean?”

He went over to her and bent down to her level, eyes light with concern.

“El, I need you to tell me what happened. Are you hurt? Badly hurt?”

She thought about it a moment. She shook her head.

“Are you sure? There’s not a _lot_ of blood?”

She shook her head again.

“Ok.” He swallowed, “This man – Matty – he’s the one who hurt you?”

She slowly nodded.

He took a breath.

“What did he do?”

She shook her head.

“El… It’s ok. You can talk to me, you know that.”

“I’m sorry,” she choked out, beginning to cry again, “He said he wanted to be my friend, so we wouldn’t tell anyone. I was stupid.”

“No, no, El. This is not your fault, it’s the bad man’s.” He sat down again and put an arm around her to reassure her, and she leaned into him heavily. He knew someone had hurt her, and boy were they in for a shock when he found whoever it was. But it got a bit more complicated if they were specifically looking for her…what would that mean? And if he’s still out there, and knows about her powers, then they’re already in danger. But he can deal with that another time. He then had an idea. He would call Joyce later, and ask her what to do, and maybe she could help El, if it seemed a ‘ladies’ problem.

Blood in her pants.

He would just have to hope Joyce would tell him its El’s first ‘time of the month’, her body ‘growing up’.

If not, there’d be _hell_ to pay.

“El.”

She sniffs, a slight sign she’s listening.   
“Did the man – touch you?”

El frowned, confused again. She poked Hopper’s arm. “Touch?”

“No, honey, not that kind of touch,” he said, berating himself for not talking to her about this stuff earlier, and he rubbed her shoulder. This was his fault, his responsibility, “More of a bad kind of touch,” he explained.

She didn’t say, or do anything.

“Kid, I’m gonna find this son of a bitch,” he cursed quietly, “And I’m gonna make sure he doesn’t do or say anything to hurt you, ever again, do you understand?”

She was a bit confused.

“He wanted to make me…feel…good. But I – didn’t want him to say anything, and-”

She couldn’t speak anymore, and she put her head on his shoulder, closing her eyes and holding onto his neck. He sighed and patted her back.

“It’s ok. El, it’s ok, I’m sorry.”  
“I am the one who, who-”

“No, no, El, listen.” He tensed his jaw, his muscles automatically tensing up. “Sometimes bad men, they’re just _bad_. Not just to you. They’re people that I deal with, and I will, and he’s not gonna say anything, you have to trust me to keep you safe. When you grow up, El, it can be…confusing.” He didn’t exactly know where he was going with this, but she seemed to have stopped crying a bit, her brown eyes looking up at him. “You notice changes. But that doesn’t mean you have to do _anything_ you don’t want. God, look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about this sort of stuff earlier, I just didn’t think about it, y’know?” He sighed.

“This man was wrong to force you to do that, even if you weren’t sure, or you think you might have felt good,” he explained, “It is never okay for anyone to hurt you like that. To _violate_ you. You understand a bit better?”  
She nodded.

“Did you – take care of him?”  
She nodded again, and pointed to the back of her head.

“Good. You always know you can defend yourself when you need to, ok? It doesn’t matter if he sees your powers, as long as you’re safe.” El nodded solemnly, and stifled a yawn.

“Like with the demadogs.”

He smiled.

“I mean, yea, I guess. But it’s a bit different when we’re fighting things from the upside down, who just kill any _thing_ and any _one_. You only really wanna use your powers in self-defence, and I know you’re getting better at that. This man, this _sick_ man, is just a bad person, and you are too young to…to understand fully yet, but you will. Until then, you are a _kid_. You’re _my_ kid. And even if you are becoming a teenager…You can always talk to me. Ok?” Yea, it may be awkward, and God he was definitely calling Joyce and hoping she would help with the whole ‘teenage girl growing up’ thing. But he was still a father. And a sheriff. He had a duty. And he cared about El so much, he hated that she was in pain right now.

“El, I…I need to ask you just a bit more about what Matty- about what he did, did he-” He looked down to make sure she was listening, but she was so worn out she seemed to be falling asleep on his shoulder. She was okay for now. He wasn’t satisfied, but he’d call round Joyce in the morning, and see what she thought. If they had to go the doctors, he absolutely would. As long as he didn’t lose her, and she wasn’t in pain. He couldn’t stand that. Not again.

Pushing her messy hair back, he smiled tenderly, feeling tears in his own eyes. He put his arms underneath her to pick her up, and he carried her to her bed to lay her gently down on it. Her clothes were messy, but they weren’t wet, which was the main thing. He pulled the covers over her and tucked her in, and closed the curtains while he was at it. He then sat on the chair next to her bed, making sure she was alright, though she seemed to be better than she was earlier, and falling asleep fairly quickly. She looked tired. An innocent child, bared with more scars than most, so of course she was tired. But she was so strong. He only wished she didn’t have to be. Well, he wouldn’t leave her in the dark about anything again. He would protect her better this time, he had to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Perhaps they'll be a little more of Hop taking care of El before he goes on his rampage. Who knows which order. I don't know. But some Joyce and comfort eggos next time! How have I not put in the eggos yet. Dearie me.


End file.
